The Dark Tide

He turned back to the witness. “You said you heard the engine accelerate?”

“That’s right. I was stepping out of my car. Thought I’d kill some time before my next appointment.” Dietz pressed his inter-locked hands around the back of his head. “Cold calls…Don’t ever quit.”

“I’ll try not to.” Hauck gri

“Yup. It caught my eyes as it sped up.” Dietz nodded.

“The driver was male?”

“Definitely.”

“Any chance you caught a description?”

He shook his head. “After the vehicle stopped, the guy looked back for an instant through the glass. Maybe had a second thought at what he’d done. I couldn’t get a read on his face. Tinted windows. Believe me, I wish I had.”

Hauck looked back up the hill and followed what he imagined was the victim’s path. If he worked at J &D Tint and Rims, he’d have to walk across West Street, then cross the Post Road at the light to get to the diner.

“You say you used to be on the force?”

“ Township of Freehold.” The witness’s eyes lit up. “ South Jersey. Near Atlantic City. Twenty-three years.”

“Good for you. So what I’m going to ask you, Mr. Dietz, you may understand. Did you happen to notice if the vehicle was traveling at a consistently high rate of speed prior to making the turn? Or did it speed up as the victim stepped into the street?’

“You’re trying to decide if this was an accident or intentional?” The ex-cop cocked his head.

“I’m just trying to get a picture of what took place,” Hauck replied.

“I heard him from up there.” Dietz pointed up the block toward the Arby’s. “He shot down the hill, then spun into the turn-outta control. To me it was like he must’ve been drunk. I don’t know, I just looked up when I heard the impact. He dragged the poor kid’s body like a sack of wheat. You can still see the marks. Then he stopped. I think the kid was underneath him at that point, before he sped away.”

Dietz said he’d be happy to look at some photos of white SUVs, to try to narrow down the make and model. “You find this SOB, Lieutenant. Anything I can do, you let me know. I wa

Hauck thanked him. Not as much to go on as he would have liked. Muñoz stepped over. The guy he’d been talking to saw the incident from across the street. A track coach from up in Wilton, twenty miles away. Hodges. He identified the same white vehicle and same out-of-state plates. “AD or something. Maybe eight…” He was just stepping out of the bank after using the ATM. It had happened so quickly that he, too, couldn’t get much of a read. He gave roughly the same sketchy picture Dietz had of what had taken place.

Muñoz shrugged, disappointed. “Not a whole lot to go on, is it, Lieutenant?”

Hauck pressed his lips in frustration. “No.”

He went back to his car and called in an APB. A white late-model SUV driven by a white male, “possibly Honda or Acura, possibly Massachusetts or New Hampshire plates, possibly begi

Unless, of course, it turned out someone had it in for Abel Raymond.

There was a guy in a Yankees cap standing nearby, huddled against the chill. Stasio brought him over. Dave Corso, the owner of the auto custom shop where AJ Raymond worked.

“He was a good kid.” Corso shook his head, visibly distressed. “He’d been working with me for about a year. He was talented. He remodeled old cars himself. He was up from Florida.”

Hauck recalled his license. “You know where?”

The body-shop owner shrugged. “I don’t know. Tallahassee, Pensacola…He always wore these T-shirts, the Florida State Seminoles. I think he took everyone out for a beer when they won that college bowl last year. I think his father was a sailor or something down there.”

“You mean like in the navy?”

“No. Tugboat or something. He had his picture tacked up on the board. It’s still inside.”

Hauck nodded. “Where did Mr. Raymond live?”

“Up in Bridgeport, I’m pretty sure. I know we have it on file inside, but you know how it is-things change. But I know he banked over at First City…” He told them that AJ got this call, maybe twenty minutes before he left. He was in the middle of doing this tinting. Then he came and said he was going on early break. “Marty something, I think the guy said. AJ said he was going across the street to grab some smokes. The diner, I think. It has a machine.” Corso glanced over at the covered mound in the street. “Then this…How the hell do you figure?”

Hauck removed the victim’s wallet from out of a bag and showed Corso the photo of the girl and her son. “Any idea who this is?”

The auto-body manager shrugged. “I think he had some gal up there… Or maybe Stamford. She picked him up here once or twice. Lemme look… Yeah, I think that’s her. AJ was into working on classic cars. You know, restoring them. Corvettes, LeSabres, Mustangs. I think he’d just been up at a show this past weekend. Man…”

“Mr. Corso.” Hauck took the man aside. “Is there anyone you can think of who’d possibly want to do Mr. Raymond harm? Did he have debts? Did he gamble? Do drugs? Anything you can think of would help.”

“You’re thinking this wasn’t an accident?” The victim’s employer’s eyes widened in surprise.

“Just doing our job,” Muñoz said.

“Jeez, I don’t know. To me he was just a solid kid. He showed up. Did his job. People liked him here. But now that you mention it, this gal…I think she was married or recently split up from her husband. I know somewhere back I heard AJ mention he was having trouble with her ex. Maybe Jackie would know. Inside. He was closer to him.”

Hauck nodded. He signaled to Muñoz to follow that up.

“While we’re in there, Mr. Corso, you mind if we check where the phone call he received came from, too?”

There was something in Hauck’s gut that wasn’t sitting well about this.

He went out to the side of the road, looking back down the knoll to the accident site. It was visible-clearly. The West Street turnoff. Nothing obstructing the view. The assailant’s car hadn’t slowed. It hadn’t made a move to stop or avoid him. A DUI would have had to have been drop-dead out of his gourd on a Monday at noon to have hit this kid head-on.

The medical team from upstate had finally arrived. Hauck went back down the hill. He picked up the victim’s cell phone. He’d check the recently dialed numbers. It wouldn’t surprise him if the number that had called in would be traced to the same guy.

Things like this often worked that way.

Hauck knelt over Abel Raymond’s body a last time, taking a good look at the kid’s face. I’m go

This one-Hauck stared at the locks of long red hair, the ache of a long-untended wound rising up inside him-this one had a face.

As he was about to get up, Hauck checked the victim’s pockets a final time. In the guy’s trousers, he found some change, a gas receipt. Then he reached into the chest pocket under the embroidered patch that bore his initials. AJ.

He poked his finger around and brought out a yellow scrap of paper, a standard Post-it note. It had a name written on it with a number, a local phone exchange.

It could’ve been the person AJ Raymond was on his way to meet. Or it could’ve been in there for weeks. Hauck dropped it in the evidence bag with the other things he had pulled, one more link to check out.